Zenescope - Omnibusted #48: The Complete Jungle Book
A Wild Omnibuster Has Appeared!
And instead of relying on music references like I did in the original Jungle Book Omnibusted, I'm going to tell you that this post will contain everything Jungle Book related that I have reviewed so far (plus one thing that I haven't). I know there are several movie adaptations that I haven't seen since I was a kid (and at least one that I haven't seen at all), and I recently learned that there was a Jungle Book anime from the late 80s that I kind of want to watch when I have twenty-six hours to spare. So...next January?
But getting back to the reprint compilation, when I originally talked about Zenescope comics in Cover Charge #3: Grimm Fairy Tales (FROM June 8, 2014), I briefly summarized The Jungle Book and its sequel as follows:
"I don't yet see how it's connected to the Grimm Universe. The story is decent and the action is easy enough to follow, but all they did was make Mowgli a girl so there would be an excuse to write an unrequited lesbian romance between her and a human mongoose."
You'll also notice that the cover identifies this as Volume One, and publication dates for the individual issues and trades suggest that production on Last Of the Species had already begun when this trade was being compiled, so they knew a second Volume (if not a third) was in the bag. It especially stands to reason because Jungle Book was being advertised as far back as the Dream Eater Saga, a year before its release.
The Jungle Book Volume One
One of my original points against this series was that I had no idea why, if it is a Grimm Fairy Tales presentation, it has no bearing on the larger continuity. But through this Retrospective process and some research I did a long time ago, I've rediscovered a few possibilities for connection to justify its inclusion here. As I said in my Little Miss Muffet: Part 2 review, it could be set in an obscure Wonderland island jungle. The Alice In Wonderland miniseries even tells us through the Walrus' backstory that it was once possible to accidentally sail into other Realms Of Power. Which tracks with the tale that the first issue opens with.
On Kipling Isle (named for Rudyard Kipling, obviously, who wrote the original Jungle Book), the various animal species are locked in a war for survival (it's presented as a literal interspecies war because the animals are at least a sentient level of intelligence with their own languages and social structures, as well as an interspecies language) when a ship carrying infant slave cargo crashes into their midst, seemingly killing all humans but the four children on board and forcing a truce among the animals.
On Kipling Isle (named for Rudyard Kipling, obviously, who wrote the original Jungle Book), the various animal species are locked in a war for survival (it's presented as a literal interspecies war because the animals are at least a sentient level of intelligence with their own languages and social structures, as well as an interspecies language) when a ship carrying infant slave cargo crashes into their midst, seemingly killing all humans but the four children on board and forcing a truce among the animals.
The four were divided among the Bandar (Primates), the Tavi (Mongoose), the Seeone (Wolves), and the Shere (Tigers), and kept ignorant of each other's existence as they matured, so as to prevent the war from continuing.
And this is where I talk about the covers. As you can see in the above ad and credits page (apologies for showing the same image half a dozen times), each of the human Champions got their own cover, all of which connect (feeding that collectibles market) and received a fifth variant that gatefolds all four into one poster. Another couple of new features (there have been gatefold covers before, but few this large) are the hype quotes and the Launch tag. I think this was abandoned by the following year, but 2012 was intended to be an ambitious fiscal period, and advertising like this was an earmark of that mindset at the time.
Getting back into the story, time has passed and Seeone Mowgli (originally treated as the runt of the four) has grown into a young, mouthy Zenescope heroine willing to talk trash to Bagheera and challenge Baloo to a fight as the issue ends.
The second issue introduces us to Shere Bomani, a muscular man armed with the claws of a tiger fallen in the Great Animal War (a decent explanation for how the children got clothes, I guess, but it would have made more nature sense for them to be trained and shaped and made to earn their skins and claws by defeating one of their own in battle, especially in Bomani's case, considering his found family call him "failed tiger"—honoring someone as a future leader, despite their unproven strength, by giving them the raiments of a warrior who died in battle has that Roland Emmerich, "we failed, but we're going to show you how to succeed" energy about it that feels dumb when you stop to think about it for too long). He can't catch a gazelle because despite his size and peak-human stats, humans lack the fast-twitch muscle density to match a tiger's feats, and a 500lb human (comparable to a fully grown Bengal tiger) wouldn't have the metabolism to sustain pure muscle mass like what Bomani is shown to have here.
Because his shitty family thinks he sucks (to be fair, he does), he's made to watch while they perpetuate the cycle of violence against the wolves with the extra bonus of eliminating a threat to their conquest of Kipling Isle (which, if you remove the anthropomorphic race war and greedy monarchy stuff from the story, amounts to killing all other animals on the island and then cannibalizing each other until they starve to death). And because his shitty family are shitty (they're the greedy monarchy allegory here) and rarely have anything supportive to say, Bomani doesn't listen and screws up the tigers' chances of victory out of a misguided desire to prove himself.
Okay; enough about Bomani. Didn't Mowgli decide to challenge a fully-grown bear to a fight last issue? Yes, and it's revealed to just be a fun training spar, which is an easy little twist to figure out if you've seen the Disney version like I have (I even found myself reading the vulture's dialogue in a Ringo Starr voice because of that movie), but it serves a purpose of juxtaposing her diverse upbringing (a bear, a panther, and wolves) against Bomani's harsh, elitist background, so when they come face-to-face at the end of the issue, it feels as significant as it should.
Also, the Jungle is the Force. Yeah; characters often mention "feeling a shift in the Jungle" when danger approaches, so The Jungle Book has the Force now. Yay?
I couldn't think of a better segue or place to mention this, but certain kinds of characters have their own dialogue font and speech bubbles. They're mostly inoffensive, but the tigers' ragged, angular font can be a detriment to the reading experience, and I remember being extremely relieved when (spoilers for Jungle Book noobs) Shere Kahn was eventually forcibly removed from the story.
I couldn't think of a better segue or place to mention this, but certain kinds of characters have their own dialogue font and speech bubbles. They're mostly inoffensive, but the tigers' ragged, angular font can be a detriment to the reading experience, and I remember being extremely relieved when (spoilers for Jungle Book noobs) Shere Kahn was eventually forcibly removed from the story.
Unfortunately, the ones to be forcibly removed from the story here are the majority of the wolves, including Mowgli's adoptive wolf mother (well, damn! Now I have another music choice for the Instagram post...), and she lets her anguish be heard across Kipling Isle. Seriously, canon be damned, this series' artists and writer know how to do moments right. And I mean Moments. Like, the composition can feel chaotic and crowded at times, but things like Mowgli's anguished howl at the moon or her first encounter with Bomani just hit.
Speaking of moments that hit, while Mowgli and Baloo trek through the Jungle on their way to take out the Shere (cycle of violence and revenge, remember?), they end up passing through Bandar territory (which happens to be near the wreckage of the ship, I think, considering all of the skeletons, and the man-made resources they have access to) where their human, Bandar Dewan, gives Mowgli the stuffed animal she lost as a child. Hit.
But also, despite them being kind of environmentalists (King Louie hoards grape seeds and refers to the fruit as "treasure"), the Bandar are described in the story as engaging in "madness," which is proof enough for me that Kipling Isle is in Wonderland.
Meanwhile, Mowgli and Baloo are being tracked by Bomani (out of curiosity and possible attraction, as much as a need to repair his own pride by besting her), who ends the issue at the mercy of Kaa, the River Of Scales!
The bulk of this issue is devoted to the fight with Kaa. He's presented here as an ancient, gluttonous snake with a healing factor who has grown so much from his years of surviving and eating that he stretches the entire length of the island, so he can sense worthy prey with his body (using that Jungle Force I mentioned earlier, or from animals just not realizing they took a dip in the River Of Scales) and know exactly where to go for a good meal. This kind of feels like a case of Wonderland irony (healing factor from shedding, plus gluttonous appetite that can never be sated because his body grows with each meal) crossed with the writers coding the villains as all-consuming conquerors, and it's good, subtly provided lore that gave me something to say about an issue that's basically, "heroes fight giant snek who is not friend."
The other introduction here is Tavi Akili, the "giantess" (because she is, from a mongoose perspective) hero of her animal tribe. Baloo laments this (and Mowgli learning of the other man-cubs' existence in general, really) as a bad omen of a Second Great War, which, yeah, Baloo; people suck. Great instincts, old bear!
But the flaw with Akili's appearance here is that the creative crew have broken their streak of making Moments that hit. Foreshadowing her arrival starts things flat so that when she does jump into the fray like some kind of Jungle Batgirl (and, I might add, starts thirsting on Mowgli almost immediately), there is no pop to it. Furthermore, the paneling (using a right-third instead of a mongoose-packed splash page) kills the impact of Akili having an "Endgame Moment" a bit later when her Tribe come to even the odds. One dynamic but bland double-spread later and it's "Kaa retreated; where's Mowgli," almost as if the last twenty-one pages didn't matter.
The commentary on judging people by the actions of their race (Mowgli blaming Bomani for the death of her pack and wanting to kill him because he is Shere—Bomani is also black, by the way) is unsubtle but makes its point, even as we learn that the tigers are taking this opportunity to set up an ambush without his knowledge, because stories like this always need a third act misunderstanding to make things worse, right?
Well, it's the third act of The Jungle Book, but the beginning of the falling action (literally, because Mowgli throws Shere Kahn off a cliff in an anti-climax with some badass context paneling) for the trilogy that would be. The final issue begins by elaborating on the racial vengeance commentary from the previous issue's ending, interlaced with flashbacks of Mother Wolf telling Mowgli the Laws Of the Jungle (don't hunt outside your borders, don't take more than your share of what the Jungle provides, and only kill for food—basically the Circle Of Life with different talking animals, because The Lion King also has the Force), which Kaa is an affront to, the Shere believe they are above, and Mowgli ignores because of youthful emotion, revenge, and people suck. In the end, Mowgli looks a badass, almost dies, and learns a valuable lesson about law and order while preparing for war and marveling at the beauty of peace trying to reassert itself (the surviving wolves got...busy while Mowgli was away, and the pack has repopulated, but Bomani leads the Shere now, so on we go with the cycle of violence and revenge, to be continued...).
The Jungle Book miniseries, like most Zenescope miniseries, started out with more promise than expected, but ended up focusing more on continuation efforts than resolving things in a congruous and satisfying way. The interior art (Carlos Granda, Liezl Buenaventura, and Tim Yates) was beautiful and consistent but sometimes crowded and mis-paneled, and the writing, while dry in places and falling off near the end, had plenty of personality and emotional moments, and did a competent job of moralizing and world-building without holding the reader's hand that much.
I'm still really proud of this first review, and I'm ready to continue my coverage of the Jungle Book trilogy with Last Of the Species.
But I wasn't ready when the time originally came because my review of the first Jungle Book Volume felt so good and back to form, and I let impostor syndrome set in that I wouldn't be able to capture that natural feeling again by trying. And I started off reading Last Of the Species in kind of a negative state of mind anyway because right from the first issue, I encountered negative things to say about the production.
The Jungle Book Volume Two
Last Of the Species
But speaking of production negatives and backgrounds and confusion headaches, this is what I was talking about:
I don't know if this is present (or rather, absent) in the physical editions, and patch & peg versions are almost impossible to find anymore, but both the Trade and individual issue editions have credits pages (for the first issue only) that were straight up released without a background. The shadowed white-on-white text makes my brain scream trying to read it, and having "Time In the Sun Short Story" repeated over each of its three columns of credits is something that I feel could have been remedied with a different layout (which it is in the two following issues that feature Short Stories, so I fail to see why it was such a challenge to figure out here).
Returning to the story, we learn right away that despite her tribe being slaughtered to endangerment and her having almost died fighting Kaa and the Shere back-to-back and learning that impulsive, emotional ignorance of Jungle Law is sure to invite more war and bloodshed, Mowgli's character has reverted to that of an anti-authoritarian dumbass who doesn't understand the importance of tact (she literally pokes the bear by expressing to Baloo how much the prospect of being the title would probably suck if it happened to her) or stealth (she dismisses Bagheera as a slinky, nosy coward who never engages head-on in a fight, which I hope will be one of those Chekov's Gun lessons that help Mowgli in battle later).
Omnibuster's Note (March 4, 2026): It isn't and it doesn't.
But even with Mowgli feeling like a stagnant or regressive character, the theme behind her behavior (and the title) is a common yet deep one. Each of the man-cubs know that their physical appearance and abilities are different from those of their respective Tribes, and in some way that they have more in common with one another, but they have been raised with their Tribal identities foremost in mind. It's nature versus nurture taken to its literal extreme and informed by perception and the vast but small world that Kipling Isle presents them with. They are the Last Of the Species...but also not. And the complexities of that simple idea are amazing.
But while pondering the philosophical intricacies of racial and cultural identity and speculating about the histories of Baloo and Bagheera can lead to many interesting questions...there's also Akili. She went from being cargo on a pirate ship as a baby to being raised by a Tribe of mongoose, so how does she know what heroes are? Why does she address Tobaqui (her mangy-looking jackal sidekick) as "Old Chum," like she grew up idolizing Adam West's Batman?
These questions will have to wait for the heat-death of the Grimm Universe because after she saves a young elephant (Hathi of the Payari Tribe) from quicksand, there's a brief cut back to Mowgli where she realizes her earlier mistake, and we see that Bandar Dewan is sweet on her...in his own, monkey-mad way. It's a sweet moment of calm. Or it was until Dewan went madder and started trying to choke and drown her, the horny nutjob.
Thankfully, she was saved just in time by Akili making a Planet Of the Apes reference (and once again bringing the thirsty pickup lines) and Bomani (conveniently in the midst of leading the Shere in an attack on the Payari) facing off against Dewan for stealing his kill.
The issue ends with Mowgli getting broadsided by the Payari stampede and being thrown off a nearby cliff, along with Tobaqui.
The majority of the issue is devoted to the fight between Bomani and Dewan (who states that he only views "Mow-gley" as his "play t'ing," so yeah, he's definitely a Wonderland-grade serial killer, and his name comes from the Hindi word for madness), which illustrates (puns!) a step up in the series' paneling. It's creative, dynamic, and chaotic without feeling cluttered or difficult to follow. Other plot beats that bear mention (puns again!) are the conclusion of the Payari slaughter (with more verbal confirmation that the Shere are a shitty family, and some discrepancies in naming convention that I will elaborate on shortly), Baloo and Bagheera exploring its aftermath in search of Mowgli, and Akili being rescued by the young elephant she saved last issue.
So far in these Jungle Book reviews, I've been referring to characters by name with their Tribal designation first, like Shere Kahn and Bomani, Seeone Mowgli, Bandar Louis and Dewan, and Tavi Akili (similar to how Eastern name ordering works, and this has been the most common usage amongst the characters, as well). More often, I have simply used their first names for brevity, and because some characters (Bagheera and Baloo, for example) don't belong to a Tribe that we know of yet. However, there are instances in this issue, later in the bonus stories, and in the previous Volume, where the naming convention is reversed. Tribes as a whole, for example, are named in dialogue with the word "Tribe" or an article first (Tribe Tavi, the Payari, etc.). As for characters with reversed identifiers, there is Rikki-Tikki Tavi (the legendary snake-slayer from Kipling's original work), and early in this issue, one of the tigers refers to an elephant he kills as Radha Payari. I'm unsure if the different order is meant as a sign of status, or if the writers or letterers simply forgot how names had been presented to that point, but it stuck out to my pedantic brain, so I mentioned it.
Apparently, Dewan won the fight between issues and brought Bomani to Bandar Log (the Primates' hideout in the remains of the pirate ship) as an offering to King Louie, a.k.a. Bandar Louis in this version. While the Shere continue to express disdain for their man-cub failure of a leader and make their own plans to continue wiping out the other tribes (they actually have a checklist of small reliefs or paintings of at least six different animal species, probably drawn by Bomani because not even sentient wild animals have the dexterity or creativity to be so artistic), the Bandar get Bomani addicted to their "treasure," and try to use him as a weapon against Kaa. I'm taking this as further evidence that Kipling Isle is in Wonderland because fruits don't normally have a narcotic effect on obligate carnivores like tigers (small amounts would provide vitamin C and fiber, but a complete dietary switch would lead to a fat, toothless Bomani who shits himself) unless the Bandar have allowed it to ferment and are eating essentially alcoholic fruit. But basically everything edible or potable in the original Alice In Wonderland was drugs, so that's what I'm going with. This is how you make research fun, people!
Anyway, as you may know if you've been reading Last Of the Species, Mowgli and Tobaqui survived their fall (which means Shere Kahn probably did, too) and found themselves in an underground cave system at the end of the previous issue, and the story turns into kind of a "two people who can't stand each other must work together to escape a bottle episode" thing because apparently I'm reading interspecies erotica where a jackal has jealous romantic feelings for a human girl mongoose who is horny for a human girl wolf.
This is backed up by the surface plot, where Baloo, Bagheera, Akili, and the young Payari Hathi join forces to search for them (Akili warns Hathi about Tobaqui's jealous streak when they offer to be Akili's temporary sidekick).
Starting last issue, the world-building got more interesting with the reveal that the Payari know what humans are (identifying Bomani as "one of the human cubs"), and this issue reveals that the cave system is lit with "lightning flowers" (fire on torches), meaning that other humans are likely to still be on the island. But first, Shere Kahn is still alive! I'm so shocked!
Seriously, I even knew this was coming when I first read the Jungle Book Trilogy almost a decade ago. It comes with watching so much action and horror over my lifetime, but with such an anticlimactic final battle in the first miniseries where the villain's death isn't shown, a reveal like this isn't that much of a surprise.
What is a surprise reveal (and works better even though it's a common shōnen trope and was literally foreshadowed moments earlier in the previous issue) is that Baloo isn't in the title, after all. Yeah, bears (the Tribe Bada Dar) are still a thing because caves. And they employ bats (whose dialogue I found myself reading in a Peter Lorre voice even though Bela Lugosi would have been more appropriate because bats) as a surveillance system. Unfortunately, as imposing of a threat as they are, the Bada Dar hint at worshipping a greater threat, whom they call The God Of Fear And Fire.
While the surface group's search brings them into contact with the incredibly creepy scavengers of Kipling's End (which include crocodiles even though they were already crossed off of the tigers' hit list), Bomani and Dewan search for Kaa, and the Shere mobilize to completely wipe out the Payari, we get an entertaining but cliché sequence where Mowgli and Shere Kahn
join forces to defeat one of the Bada Dar, inciting the wrath of his tribe as the issue ends and we head into the finale.
Oddly (but not really, because Zenescope often starts an important issue by delaying a return to the action), the finale of Book II of the Jungle Book Trilogy begins with a flashback to the day of the shipwreck, where we see a man with facial tattoos who might be related to Dewan fall overboard in a storm, and particular focus is placed on a TNT barrel that was somehow thrown ashore without exploding.
I mentioned previously how I hoped Bagheera's stealth would be a Chekov's Gun realization in Mowgli's favor, but that didn't come to pass. Instead, the TNT barrel (I say, feeling like I'm suddenly doing a Donkey Kong Country review) is a retcon Chekov's Gun this issue, and Mowgli learns an important lesson from Shere Kahn of all people. Yeah; it turns out that his years of surviving in the caves brought perspective on the cycle of violence and revenge in the Jungle, and he's content to just die a warrior's death alongside his greatest rival (who is still physically weaker than him for gender and species reasons, and barely survived their "fight" in the last finale by being lucky, but themes and the Rule Of Cool abide, I guess).
So with it being established that this issue is wrapping up old plot threads, the Shere's genocide run against the Payari causes one of the elephants to trample the barrel of explosives (it's probably been long enough that the contents are unstable enough for this beat to make sense) and blow a hole into the cave system where Mowgli and Shere Kahn are making their last stand against the Bada Dar, unleashing hell on the surface of Kipling. Baloo starts fighting off his own people, the elephant slaughter continues, and Bomani and Dewan find themselves helping defend Mowgli's unattended pack from Kaa (but once again, Bomani earns that "Failed Tiger" title and misses out on an endless supply of monkey drugs because Kaa survived this encounter, too). Despite the obvious plot convenience of it all, this battle was one of the coolest Zenescope ever put to page by that point, what with Mowgli and Kahn's arrival feeling like a Moment, Baloo's fight being so personal and visceral and packed with history, Bomani being an unlikely savior to his sworn enemies, and the multi-faceted mayhem being so coherently composed.
But for losses and failures stemming from their actions, Bomani, Kahn, and Mowgli are exiled from their respective tribes, Baloo assumes leadership of the Bada Dar and commands them back into the caves as penance, and we get the reveal that the tattooed ginger from the opening is the God Of Fear And Fire.
Much like the "Shere Kahn is alive!" issue cliffhanger, this Book II Epilogue reveal was easy to see coming the first time, as well, because the caves were lit by fire and the title given to him by the Bada Dar is a pretty big hint, but though I originally read Last Of the Species out of a sense of completionist obligation, it and this final reveal were what made me want to read more Jungle Book despite my initial reservations about its canonicity or lack thereof.
And I will do that in the Jungle Book: Fall Of the Wild review later. But now, some more production formalities before I get into the two Short Stories in this Volume. Last time, I briefly mentioned the Launch tag, which is absent here (and on all covers for the first Jungle Book except #1) because Last Of the Species is a sequel series, not a Launch title. And as further evidence of the "just smash the issues together verbatim and call it good" production model being evermore in play as time passes, the short stories are included at their original positions from the individual issues (separated from the content of the main story by ads for the Unleashed event series that I plan to get to this year) and again in the Trade Paperback bonus material position after the Cover Gallery, where they are followed by ads for the Jungle Book Volume One Trade Paperback, the upcoming Oz miniseries, and two separate ads for Zenescope themselves.
Passages From The Jungle Book
Time In the Sun
Released in two parts with the first two, individual issues of Jungle Book: Last Of the Species, Time In the Sun originally lacked the "Passages From The Jungle Book" designation, which was added in the Short Story compilation at the end of the Trade Volume.
As told by Rikki-Tikki Tavi (there's that reversed naming convention again! And he even refers to Baloo as Baloo Bada Dar, though we know from the Payari fight that this name reversal is not strictly a quirk of Tavi speech), Time In the Sun is the Tale of the Bada Dar, the fearsome bear tribe whom Baloo exiled from the surface of Kipling Isle. Much like how the Shere are a commentary on selfish aristocracy and the villains in general warn against unchecked consumerism, the Bada Dar serve as a commentary on fear-mongering, industrialized military, war crimes, the misguided indoctrination of patriotism into the young, ceremony vs. purposeful tradition, and greed, among other subjects. From Baloo, they learn how great they are and how great and fearsome they should be seen in the Jungle. Through a pretense of ritual combat, they gain a leader less concerned with the Law Of the Jungle than with breeding (even with Baloo's mate) and indoctrinating an army to dominate and consume all on Kipling for their own sustenance and the promise of excessive living. They hoard fresh kills and make gruesome trophies of the dead. And for his role in creating such a culture, rather than stay and try to correct his mistakes before institutional corruption and the interpretive vagaries of idealism twist his people beyond saving (it's arguably too late, but also arguably not), Baloo chooses to make himself an outcast and traitor to his kind, and seal the Bada Dar underground, burying his past and accountability (and assassinating the portrayal of him as a wise but tragic figure that has been presented thus far) so that the toxic culture he had a hand in creating can compound and fester in isolation like an off-the-grid community of political extremists. All hail the conquering hero, [insert sarcasm joke here], The End.
Passages From The Jungle Book
When Tobaqui Met Akili
I won't have what she's having....
This short story was first released as part of the third individual issue of Jungle Book: Last Of the Species, and has no ad break between it and the main story in either the single issue or Trade Paperback versions (and no "Passages From The Jungle Book" addition to the title in the latter). We simply get the cliffhanger reveal of
from issue #3, and it's straight into the short story, which, the title says it all, and not much is left for me. Rikki-Tikki Tavi narrates this one more than he did Time In the Sun (which makes sense because it is a Tavi story), and the tikka-tics in his Yoda-lite dialogue verge on annoying. But that isn't the worst thing about When Tobaqui Met Akili, because it makes light of a Jackal with a hero/savior complex developing obsessive romantic feelings (and the suggestion of a shifting sub-dom dynamic as Akili grows up) for a human toddler.
Some Tales should go untold, but now, because this is The Complete Jungle Book, it's important to include the collection of tales that started it all....
Mowgli Is A Little Busted, Actually
You wouldn't guess this from reading the Zenescope comics or watching the Disney movies (1967, 2016), but Mowgli has feats that make him kinda busted as a combat and survival character for scaling debates. Like, he's a kid with no powers or martial arts training, so I'm not saying he's ready to solo a fictional universe or even take on most street-level comic book heroes, but being raised by wolves, a panther, and a bear has trained him to peak-human to low-superhuman levels of strength, stamina, and durability to where he can survive being tossed around the treetops by wild monkeys, casually bitten and struck by multiple species of predators on a daily basis, and do the heavy labor of several grown men by himself without tiring...as a child. He has the mental capacity to learn and retain multiple animal and human languages and craft fairly solid combat strategies (one of which he used to kill Shere Kahn even in the event of its failure), his gaze is enough to frighten any animal (which is contrary to what normal human eye contact means to wild animals in reality), and his fearless spirit and mental fortitude at one point made him resistant to Kaa's hypnosis. Unfortunately, Mowgli's pride and fearless nature (and the youthful know-it-all attitude he had at a very young age and seems to be the base trait of the character in most adaptations), and his inability to learn the tongues of non-jungle animals like cattle, have gotten him in trouble (running off and getting kidnapped by the Bandar Log monkeys, making light of human ignorance costing him financial gains from Kahn's hide, being unable to speak buffalo compromising his attack on Kahn, and being outcast as a demon because he threatened a human hunter with his command of jungle beasts, just to name a few). Still, Mowgli's a little busted, right?
It's been decades since I watched the animated Jungle Book (and time and hard scheduling prevent me from doing so now, much less with any of the live-action adaptations), so I'm smashing the nostalgic anecdotes and comparisons together into this next section.
From What I Remember
To me, The Jungle Book was about this lanky, awkward boy who hung out with dancing, singing animals, trying to fit in, until he somehow won an epic showdown with a tiger amidst a burning landscape and his companions shooed him off to make goofy faces at a human girl, to be continued in what the book calls "another story...that's not for children." The vultures were caricatures of the Beatles, Kaa was this silly, elastic, comedic foil with hypnotic eyes and the voice of Winnie-the-Pooh, Baloo was somewhere between a naked Little John and a future cargo pilot, Bagheera was the lazy know-it-all authority figure, the monkeys were wannabe jazz musicians, the wolves were barely in the movie, and the elephants were cranky, stuck up, and one psychedelic filter away from being the stuff of Dumbo's nightmares.
Omnibuster's Note (March 4, 2026): Sources are mostly wrong about this.
In The Jungle Book, Mowgli was written to be more competent than in the majority of adaptations, being both a figure of prophecy and an outcast of dual nature whose life is owed to a cow (all in accordance with the Indian culture Kipling was exposed to in his upbringing during British occupation). Though we see the Rule 63 version fight more in Zenescope's comics and there are live-action adaptations where Mowgli is older and the stories are more generically action-focused, I'm more impressed with the original character (I even devoted the first section of this book review to him). Also, did you know that him/her wearing animal skins isn't book accurate? He's actually written to be naked for the majority of his chapters, frightening other human children with his appearance on occasion and finding clothing to be uncomfortable and restricting when he joins human society for a brief time. I guess The Jungle Book should be banned as child pornography, right?
That was more cynical sarcasm, by the way, so let's get back to comparisons before some radical decides I agree with them. The main predatory bird in the book is a kite named Rann, not vultures, Kaa is more realistic, deadly, and serious (though The Jungle Book is not without humor, and he was depicted with hypnotic abilities from the beginning that are existentially terrifying) and acts as a volatile ally in the chapters he appears, Baloo and Bagheera are more like brotherly mentors to Mowgli (despite Bagheera essentially owning him according to Jungle Law), and the wolfpack of the Seeone Hills had a great deal of lore and story participation. I didn't mention Bagheera, the elephants, or the monkeys in detail yet because they deserve their own paragraphs.
Bagheera actually had some lore originally, buying the infant Mowgli's life with a cow carcass because of previous experiences he had as a show captive of Man before escaping back into the jungle, and seeing this as an opportunity to inject understanding of the Law Of the Jungle into Man's World. And he gets to show humility and provide brief comedy when he asks Kaa for help against the monkeys. Bagheera is an actual character in the original book, and I like it.
Speaking of the monkeys, there is no King Louie in the book (they are stated several times to lack leadership), though their two-chapter story ends with a verse that "I Wanna Be Like You" was probably inspired by. Whereas the comics give most characters some kind of sociopolitical allegory, it is most evident in the book with the monkeys. Kipling seems to use the monkeys as a commentary on aristocracy and incompetent leadership. They are short-sighted, forgetful, and unfocused despite their promises, lofty aspirations to humanity, superior attitudes, and negatively attention-seeking nature (strangely, almost like they'd be more at home in an Alice In Wonderland story...). They are the closest genetic relatives Mowgli has in the jungle, and yet prove to be the last beasts he ought to associate with...right up until they get hypnotized and walk right down Kaa's throat to never be seen again. Like I said, existentially terrifying.
As for the elephants, only Hathi gets any role in the Mowgli chapters until "Toomai Of the Elephants," and I honestly can't remember anything they did except that the elephants in the Toomai story were pack animals for the Indian government, and Little Toomai is like Mowgli for elephants, which made me wonder in the end why it wasn't just Mowgli to begin with. I don't know whether it has anything to do with the narrator's voice or the shift away from Mowgli in The Jungle Book's second half, but I found the later stories boring and forgettable, which brings us to the final, critical section of this review.
That was more cynical sarcasm, by the way, so let's get back to comparisons before some radical decides I agree with them. The main predatory bird in the book is a kite named Rann, not vultures, Kaa is more realistic, deadly, and serious (though The Jungle Book is not without humor, and he was depicted with hypnotic abilities from the beginning that are existentially terrifying) and acts as a volatile ally in the chapters he appears, Baloo and Bagheera are more like brotherly mentors to Mowgli (despite Bagheera essentially owning him according to Jungle Law), and the wolfpack of the Seeone Hills had a great deal of lore and story participation. I didn't mention Bagheera, the elephants, or the monkeys in detail yet because they deserve their own paragraphs.
Bagheera actually had some lore originally, buying the infant Mowgli's life with a cow carcass because of previous experiences he had as a show captive of Man before escaping back into the jungle, and seeing this as an opportunity to inject understanding of the Law Of the Jungle into Man's World. And he gets to show humility and provide brief comedy when he asks Kaa for help against the monkeys. Bagheera is an actual character in the original book, and I like it.
Speaking of the monkeys, there is no King Louie in the book (they are stated several times to lack leadership), though their two-chapter story ends with a verse that "I Wanna Be Like You" was probably inspired by. Whereas the comics give most characters some kind of sociopolitical allegory, it is most evident in the book with the monkeys. Kipling seems to use the monkeys as a commentary on aristocracy and incompetent leadership. They are short-sighted, forgetful, and unfocused despite their promises, lofty aspirations to humanity, superior attitudes, and negatively attention-seeking nature (strangely, almost like they'd be more at home in an Alice In Wonderland story...). They are the closest genetic relatives Mowgli has in the jungle, and yet prove to be the last beasts he ought to associate with...right up until they get hypnotized and walk right down Kaa's throat to never be seen again. Like I said, existentially terrifying.
As for the elephants, only Hathi gets any role in the Mowgli chapters until "Toomai Of the Elephants," and I honestly can't remember anything they did except that the elephants in the Toomai story were pack animals for the Indian government, and Little Toomai is like Mowgli for elephants, which made me wonder in the end why it wasn't just Mowgli to begin with. I don't know whether it has anything to do with the narrator's voice or the shift away from Mowgli in The Jungle Book's second half, but I found the later stories boring and forgettable, which brings us to the final, critical section of this review.
The Critic Sleeps Tonight
Once Mowgli's arc of growing up, learning human things, and slaying Shere Kahn to fulfill his oath to the Jungle was complete (to be continued for adults because Mowgli's V-Card is still up for grabs), I found myself with a lack of engagement in the ensuing stories, wanting The Jungle Book to be over as quickly as time and "reading" speed could allow. "The White Seal" was a blunt focus on human brutality that seemed too verbally graphic for its intended audience, crossed with an off-brand Ugly Duckling narrative. "Toomai Of the Elephants" was an exercise in patience and endurance with a decent, unexpected payoff. "Her Majesty's Servants" was an animal perspective on a military inspection with no clear narrative, and is entirely as interesting as that sounds. The only standout (and the only story I have fond childhood memories of besides the movies inspired by the Mowgli chapters) of these latter stories is "Rikki-Tikki Tavi," which I watched the Chuck Jones-animated short movie of in grade school. The short (narrated by Orson Welles) isn't as epic with its fight choreography as nostalgia tells me (is it ever objectively right?), but it adapts the original story pretty faithfully. Basically, Rikki-Tikki washes up on the grounds of a British estate and is taken in by a family of three, soon getting to display his serpent-slaying skills in their defense and coming to the attention of a couple of cobras who seek to kill the family and maintain rule of their garden. It's heartwarming and reads like a small-scale Beowulf, though the 1890s British writing dries things up a little. Rikki-Tikki Tavi is an awesome little hero in both versions I've experienced, and I'll remember it and him fondly.
There were other characters I neglected to mention here, but I found plenty of time to be comparative about them in the Fall Of the Wild review, which is next.
and the Table Of Contents (the background for which is taken from the fourth issue, and suggests—along with the revelation of The God Of Fear And Fire in the previous Volume—that the titular Fall Of the Wild may be at the hands of Man; more specifically, the returning pirate crew). The clean lines and solid colors are a sign of the new presentation style, but as a finale collection, it promises the "Art Of the Jungle Book" as this Volume's bonus material (which is just line art of select pages from the Fall Of the Wild issues).
The last thing I'd like to talk about before getting into the story itself is these two pages (as a grammar pedant, I hate several things about this sentence, but I'm trying to grow as a person and not correct things that aren't of great importance, so let's ignore the numerical and verb disagreements, and move on, shall we?).
They feature the series' recognizable black-on-brown tiger striping as a background, as well as 2015's banner-ized look. On the left, we see that The Jungle Book is now being cemented as a trilogy, of which Fall Of the Wild is the final entry. The image here is taken out of context and sepiatoned from the first issue, appearing reminiscent of Neverland's chasing imagery (though Mowgli and Bagheera are actually running almost side-by-side in the real panel).
On the right is the cast page (which a lot of comics from different publishers were doing at the time). Character portraits are taken from covers and panels throughout the series, with the big-bad God Of Fear And Fire getting a drunken driver's license photo for some reason, and it's more superfluous production padding that can also be found on the first issue's credits page, but it serves its purpose of making The Jungle Book's final Volume feel a bit more special.
The Jungle Book Volume Three
Fall Of the Wild
So...I'm confused here because the Launch tag is back. I know it's been over a decade since I read the first Jungle Book miniseries for the first and only other time, so it stands to reason that my memory of something so minor would be wrong, but the first issue of The Jungle Book had the Launch tag and the other four did not, nor did any of the Last Of the Species issues, so it's easy to assume that either it wasn't used past 2012, sequels aren't considered Launch titles, or both. Now here we are with a sequel from 2015 that bears the Launch tag on its first issue covers. What happened? I mean, besides time and my forty-something brain?
Speaking of "what happened?," the first issue opens on ants.
And then Mowgli and Bagheera are just lazing about, watching the Shere "battle" the Payari like it's just an inconvenient but entertaining aspect of life on Kipling Isle. They immediately lose cool points from me because of this, and as for the Shere, they have a lot of nerve exiling Bomani and
for being failures because this is the third time they've tried to conquer and wipe out the elephants in the course of two Volumes, and before that, they failed to wipe out the wolves twice. Yeah, I think everyone sucks now. And so do the characters in The Jungle Book!
And speaking of Jungle Book characters who suck now, Baloo (who literally buried his past as a fascist youth indoctrinator and allowed his people to twist into a bloodthirsty, self-destructive, Man-worshipping cult because responsible leadership is hard) is down in the caves (called Kipling's Root here), fighting his zealous tribe to the death on a more-than-daily basis (which he would not have to do if he had buried himself with the Bada Dar and taken the time to do right by them instead.
Setting up other arcs for this miniseries, we also have the impending eruption of Kipling's Reach (the island's mountain peak) that sends Mowgli and Bagheera in search of Tribe Gyaani (a hermit council of Jedi sloths, so expect some predictable, Zootopia DMV humor that predated that film by a year), the exiled Bomani and Kahn living among the scavengers of Kipling's End, King Bandar Louis being smitten with Akili because she "slayed" Kaa (he's going to be doubly disappointed when he finds out that not only is Kaa still alive, but that Akili vine-swings for Team Mowgli, if you know what I mean), and the God Of Fear And Fire is searching for that missing human cargo from a decade ago.
While the hippie sloths (slowly) tell Mowgli to be a hero and unite the tribes against a greater threat...before burning to death in lava from the eruption, Rikki-Tikki attempts to quell tension among Tribe Tavi by telling another issue-padding, tikka-tic-riddled tale (because yes, even my favorite red-eyed, serpent-slaying speedster is an annoying, sucky, useless asshat in this version). It's kind of an awesome little lore nugget (Kaa got so huge because he was born hungry and ate every snake on the island, including his egg-siblings and his own mother), but there's actual plot that could have been given more page time instead. Plots like Dewan kidnapping Akili for that wedding to the Bandar King, and the continuing Shere/Payari battle-slaughter where we learn that enough time has passed for Hathi to have grown up and become my favorite character, ragdolling and goring a tiger before delivering a cold one-liner. But that's about it. Bomani and Kahn are also there, but they go wasted because no attempt is made to explore their family dynamic in this new exile context. Instead they're played off like background elements waiting for their moment to be relevant again.
I should just keep my cynical mouth shut sometimes because the first page of the third issue immediately remedies the criticism I just had and answers a question that has been lingering in my mind since the first miniseries. The origin of Bomani's claw gauntlets, the real reason the Shere call him "failed tiger," and Kahn's new perspective on revenge all hit too close to the heart to spoil here, so I strongly recommend reading the entire Trilogy for context (it's a fairly quick catch-up) and experiencing this Moment for yourselves.
And despite it being undercut on the next page by King Louie making Pepe Le Pew noises at Akili as unwanted foreplay for a bondage wedding,
this issue absolutely rocks. Mowgli finally takes a few literal pages from the source material (some from the "Tiger, Tiger" chapters and some from "Kaa's Hunting") to use a herd of gazelles (the "Grass Dancers," as they're called here, serve as the comic book equivalent to the original Mowgli's cattle whom he used to box in and inadvertently trample Shere Kahn in the book) to storm Bandar Log with the help of Bagheera and Tobaqui (in the book, it was two wolves from Mowgli's old pack who herded the cattle for him) so she could rescue Akili. Kaa interrupts both the wedding and the rescue and starts swallowing monkeys whole (including Louis and Akili). Dewan guts Kaa Sharknado-style to free everyone. Akili cuts the wedding bond and ousts Louis, declaring herself Queen Of the Tavi-Bandar. Bomani and Kahn work together to save Mowgli from being trampled (including another intimate moment—no capital, but the save is a Moment—between Mowgli and a wild man who has previously tried to kill her several times). And finally, the God Of Fear And Fire manages to capture Mowgli and set a course for a nearby pirate vessel called the Courageous.
The timing of this is stupid-convenient and only gets explained (I use that term loosely) in the fourth issue by the God Of Fear And Fire just...rowing out to sea and hoping he gets spotted.
Lucky bastard.
He later explains to the captain (yeah, I praised the Moment between Bomani and his tiger-dad earlier, but this miniseries has a lot of "tell what wasn't shown before" to it because the creative crew knew they had squeezed this particular financial bloodstone as much as they could and were trying to wrap things up as hastily but cleanly as possible; anyway, as he was a grown man when he went overboard, he still speaks the language of Man rather than the Jungle Tongue) that he was unable to learn animal speech and has no influence on the Bada Dar or bats other than what safety the torches provided him. He has no idea that the Bada Dar think of him as a god, and his only motivation is to recapture the man-cubs and use them (especially Mowgli for some reason that makes her bounty higher than the rest) to get rich. That dopey cast picture makes more sense now, and I hate it that he's just some guy defined entirely by greed.
Moving back to the interesting side of the cast, I think it's time to talk about those characters from the original Jungle Book that I didn't get to in that review, starting with an easy one: Mang the Bat. We now know (because Ginger Man-Bear-Pig doesn't speak the language) that his portrayal here as a warning system and liaison between the Bada Dar and their "god" was a big misdirection, like an upside-down, inside-out Wizard Of Oz, so he's pretty much just there to be there so readers can do Peter Lorre impressions in their heads whether they know that's what they're doing or not. In the book, he gets one mention in the first couplet of the opening poem as the one who "sets free...the night," and a few passing mentions later as a messenger who flies from one end of the Jungle to the other and back again, but has no importance to the story besides the reader learning that Mowgli was taught to speak bat. Tobaqui is a much different character in the book than the comics, and the book is the only reason I have referred to him as a jackal in these reviews (the comics mostly have him referred to as a "wild dog"). Rather than having a pathological, nauseating obsession with Akili (not to be confused with the aged Seeone pack leader from the book, Akila), book Tobaqui is a mangy scavenger and Jungle gossip with closer ties to Shere Kahn than anyone else.
With that out of the way and getting back into Fall Of the Wild, Akili, Tobaqui, Bagheera, Shere Kahn, and Dewan work together to unite the tribes of Kipling (in vain, because prejudice and past misdeeds run deep, even as the island continues to erupt around them) and mount a rescue effort to intercept the Courageous. Cool swashbuckling antics ensue, resulting in the apparent death of Bomani (whom Mowgli was just starting to get sweet on), and the pirates of the Courageous set course for Kipling to hunt down their payday.
This hyper-realism cover by Cris De Lara is beautiful, but attention should also go to the A Cover by Ted Hammond where Mowgli is wearing Bomani's claw like it's the Infinity Gauntlet because of the reference and plot relevance.
After a Moment of a speech where Mowgli is acknowledged as Shere Seeone, she at last unites the tribes of Kipling Isle against the invading force of Man, driving them back with the help of Bandar Louis (who discovered fire last issue) using the shipwreck's cannons against the Courageous. It's an amazing fight, but not the last, because the Bada Dar soon show up, and Baloo's only recourse is to give his life in a mock challenge against Mowgli (using the pre-established veneer of ceremonial combat in the story's favor) so she can use her authority to stop their rampant culling of the island. It's clear that this peace by force is entirely temporary and that by the end, The Jungle Book was more a story of growth into heroism (mostly through tragic loss) rather than of heroism itself, in a world bigger than knowledge can know, where life goes on in a flat circle regardless of those who live it. The potential was definitely there for more to tell in the world of Kipling Isle (more territory to explore, King Louie's dynamic with the Bada Dar as the new God Of Fear And Fire, increasing threats from Man's World, etc.), but for an uncollected Christmas special that I will cover later in this compilation, three Volumes was all we would ever get, and as a complete, self-contained story, it mostly works. There are times when the pacing could have been tighter and characterization could have been more consistent or fleshed out (backloading exposition doesn't count!), but I generally enjoyed myself.
For completion's sake once again (and even though I just posted it yesterday), I re-present you with my thoughts and feelings on The Second Jungle Book: I guess a good place to start is that, having read Kipling's sequel, I saw very little (aside from Mowgli's jungle family urging him to rejoin "the Man-Pack," the increased focus on action, and Mowgli glimpsing a human girl near the end) that I could have recognized from the duology's adaptations. So...wrong sources there.
"How Fear Came" and
"The Law Of the Jungle"
Kipling's tales in the first Jungle Book were not ordered chronologically (what else could you do in those days when you were halfway through writing and your main villain was dead, but write flashbacks?), and this was one of those, set during a season of drought and famine when Shere Kahn was still alive. It uses a naturally occurring event (animals from across the food chain using a communal water source and mostly putting aside their hunger needs to bathe and hydrate) as the basis for world-building and elaboration on the Law Of the Jungle (which we've been told the basics of before, and is detailed in verse by Baloo as its own digression here). It's mostly dry and uninteresting (pun not intended), even when Shere Kahn shows up to boast about more of his illegal activities (Man-killing for sport, which is exponentially taboo by Law, and he deserves every bit of the trampling and skinning he would get later) and otherwise thumb his nose at all that is sacred and orderly. But this does lead to a fun, origin-style myth explaining the creation of the Jungle (dug up by a kaiju-sized elephant, a la Paul Bunyan), the food chain (the first ape and big cat brought shame and bloodshed to a vegan/fructarian society, respectively), and said tiger's stripes and relationship to Man, a.k.a. Fear (hence where the Zenescope trilogy got its God Of Fear And Fire character).
It brought back fond academic memories of my religion and mythology studies in high school and college.
"The Miracle Of Purun Baghat"
and "A Song Of Kabir"
I mentioned in my previous Jungle Book review (though in different words) that Kipling seems to only know how to write two kinds of character: talking animals, and outcast (or out-caste, because India) humans who learn to speak with animals. Basically, stories about characters like Mowgli who aren't Mowgli should have been about Mowgli from the start because he's Kipling's most popular and interesting character. However, Purun Baghat works as a Mowgli-like character because he isn't Mowgli, while also not working in comparison to Mowgli.
After some long, dry, expositional world-building, we're introduced to the title character: a former politician of wide renown, influence, and accomplishment, who resigns from his post amidst a regime change and the onset of old age to become a nomadic holy man, eventually returning to his childhood community in the mountains, where visions and the kinship of the local wildlife help him save the village from a landslide before he dies with honor and is revered as a local hero of sorts. The poem is basically a speculative companion piece, asking what would drive such a man to take up the cloth, and aside from the excessively biblical prose (I call it "the begetting," or in this case, the Baghat-ing, because it starts farther back than it should and lists off a sequence of events and people that establish, but don't meaningfully inform, the ensuing story), they're both fine. This story works because of the character's age and experience, and perhaps also because of the time period and location. But as I read, I found myself thinking, "Mowgli would have been laughed off for that" or "that would have been denounced as witchcraft" or "they would have killed this man instead of praising him." I know they're fictional characters, and different characters at that, but there are enough similarities that their differences read as hypocritical in a comparative context.
"Letting In the Jungle" and
"Mowgli's Song Against People"
This was my favorite story to this point in The Second Jungle Book once I realized where it was going. Continuing almost directly from the events of "Tiger, Tiger" in The Jungle Book (where Mowgli and the Seeone herd his water buffalo to box in and trample Shere Kahn), "Letting In the Jungle" sees Mowgli return to the Jungle after his wisdom was laughed off and he was exploited and accused of witchcraft by the village hunters (hence my tarnished view of the previous story). Upon learning that his human parents were also accused of witchcraft and sentenced to the "Red Flower" (burning at the stake or the Indian equivalent, because that's what the animals/Jungle People call fire) and are being imprisoned, ridiculed, and tortured in the meantime, Mowgli seeks the help of Hathi and the other elephants (who have past experience wiping out a human village in retaliation for violence against their kind) to do the title on his behalf so he can rescue his birth parents and erase from existence those who did them wrong. Kipling's prose bogs down the action yet again, but the dialogue is emotionally charged to a palpable degree, and again, the moment when I realized what it all meant was a mix of cathartic validation and dark introspection at the idea of rooting for such a terrifyingly powerful and emotionally unstable protagonist. Yes, Mowgli acts to benefit those he cares for, and that is correctly framed as a heroic motivation. But his increasing awareness of his literal Manhood while being of a childish, beastly mindset invites a dangerous cockiness: an entitlement to be master of all and to have whatever his emotions tell him he requires. And in this modern world, where the childish, beastly masters of all put their feelings above the word of law and send their elephants to trample whatever offends them at any given moment, the potential enemy you support is a dangerous friend to have. Beware who you root for, because they might not be as supportive of you as you wish them to be.
"The Undertakers" and
"A Ripple Song"
A stork, Tobaqui the jackal, and a crocodile complain about the English and bitch at each other for thirty pages. Somewhere in there, I may have chuckled a time or one about the crocodile getting brain freeze from eating a chunk of ice that a deck hand threw him once. Really riveting stuff, but not as riveting as the succeeding poem about a crocodile eating a woman who tries to cross a river. Or as riveting as my sarcasm. Next.
"The King's Ankus" and
"The Song Of the Little Hunter"
In my childish acknowledgement of the similarity between "ankus" and a similarly spelled but funnier word (and my boredom at having endured the previous "story"), I did not realize this was another Mowgli tale, and a pretty interesting one. Of all the pairings Kipling could have gone with, I did not expect Kaa to be Mowgli's mentor here, but it works. Like Baloo in previous stories (and the comics) where he is Mowgli's mentor, Kaa is an imposing, physically superior jungle beast who holds back his strength and speed (a tenth of his full power, as Kaa himself states, like he's a Dragon Ball deity or something) to train the boy. Like Mowgli himself, Kaa is capable of feats that get existentially terrifying and make you question your own morality if you think into the abyss for too long. And speaking of feats, we get another strength feat for Mowgli when he lifts Kaa by his midsection (which Kipling equates to a grown man lifting a two-foot section of water main, so, probably in the triple digits? I'm not a math scaler...) and carries him an unspecified distance. In their training fight, we also learn that Mowgli is not fast enough to react to or counter Kaa's strikes, even in this casual state (though Mowgli suggests he can at least see Kaa's movements).
Soon, talk turns to Mowgli and the superficial needs of Man (he knows of the purpose of money in human society, but doesn't understand greed, and his only regret as a stronger, older Manling—the other characters mostly stop calling him "Man-cub" in the last two stories because he has outgrown it—is missing out on hunts worthy of his new strength. Even when Kaa invites him to explore the temple from "Kaa's Hunting," where a senile, time-bleached cobra guards a massive treasure trove for his long-deceased royal master, Mowgli does so with only curiosity, wishing to see the titular object (an ornate, bejeweled polearm for stabbing elephants and hooking cattle that he is warned of as Death to Man) in the sunlight and show it to Bagheera. But with that done, he discards it and later learns the truth of the white cobra's warning when he and Bagheera follow human tracks and find six men who have killed each other out of greed. Mowgli then returns the ankus to the temple and moves on, unaware of why Death was not for him and grateful to be alive. Cool little character piece.
"Quiquern" and
"Angutivun Tina"
(Song Of the Returning Hunter)
I kind of like this one despite the dense, long-winded narration. It's a standard, "boy and girl find love after miraculously surviving deadly hardships" crossed with "loyal animal companions reunite with their master and save the day" and a smattering of Inuit mysticism. Rote as it sounds (and with ample opportunity for culturally insensitive execution and conservative whining about forced diversity if it were made today because some people are horrible), it's something that would have made an incredible 80s or 90s movie; sort of a wintry Blue Lagoon-meets-Homeward Bound. The tone is at once fatalistic and optimistic, and the description, long-winded as it can be, creates powerful mental imagery. The accompanying poem is a "hey, ladies; the hunt was successful and we're back" sort of thing with a triumphant tone, but Kipling seems kind of cynical about his own rhyme scheme even though it isn't that bad. More Mowgli, please.
"Red Dog," "Chil's Song,"
"The Spring Running," and "The Outsong"
The Second Jungle Book concludes on several sad notes in these final tales and poems, with Mowgli a Manling in his prime and those who raised, educated, and trained him beginning to age out or follow their own paths in life. As of "Red Dog," Mowgli seems to have made peace with his wants and needs (neither as emotionally dangerous and selfish as he was in "Letting In the Jungle," nor as susceptible to wonder and vice as Kaa worried he might be in "The King's Ankus"), and acts as a protector of the Jungle he calls home. Here, that involves saving an exiled and widowed wolf and the Seeone wolves from an invading pack of dholes (red, bushy-tailed, hyena-looking canines), once again with the aid of Kaa (and several hives of bees—real bees that actually exist in India—that are so large that I now have exactly one reason to be proud I'm an American). It's a battle that eclipses the Shere Kahn fight in terms of strategy, scale, and emotional weight (Mowgli previously speculated that he could have probably now defeated Shere Kahn fairly and without aid—where before, he had the buffalo at his mercy and he won as a child with no collateral losses, even with his plan failing—and yet here, he and his pack and other allies face multiple dholes and employ underhanded strategies, winning the day but suffering tragic losses that push Mowgli to an internal conflict between feeling he is still needed in the Jungle and honoring his pack-father's dying wish), and the poem of Chil the kite is both a fitting aftermath to the battle and a healthy interpretation of death as something cold, inevitable, and impersonal, yet intimate and darkly friendly.
Speaking of Dragon Ball deities and dying wishes, though, after destruction comes creation, because it's spring! And in "The Spring Running," as the surviving wolves find mates and Mowgli's longtime companions begin to feel the pains of old age, Mowgli himself is struck by feelings and instincts he never had before his recent coming of age, and seeks to outrun what is in him and what he fears to face alone at a time when solitude is unavoidable for one with nowhere to belong. His titular run once more reunites him with his birth mother (and now, a two-year-old brother), and yet, the poisoned feeling in him remains, and all comes flooding out when his wolf-brother, Kaa, Baloo, and Bagheera tell him it is okay (it's Jungle Law, actually) to let his burdens go and set his own path into the future, so long as he remains focused and ignores temptation (this last is elaborated on in "The Outsong").
The only duty we have to the past is to remember it and give thanks that it shaped us into what we are and gave us the power to choose what we will become. The real poison lies in clinging to twisted, idealized visions of "better times," because as terrifying as potential and possibility can be, steadfastness, growth, and positive change are what make us better as people. Damn.
On that note, we now close out The Complete Jungle Book Omnibusted with one last bonus that was never collected in any Trade or Omnibus compilation.
The Jungle Book 2016 Holiday Special
Bagheera's Secret
Not that the inciting incident of this whole issue isn't its own contrived basket of bullshit and spiders, because for the first time ever in the history of Kipling Isle (that was probably raised from the sea by a lava-breathing Lovecraftian elephant monster for all we know), it's snowing. So no one but Bagheera (because he has the same, captive circus animal origin story as in the original text—that's his big secret for why he advocated for the man-cub truce, why he is so strict with Mowgli, why he is the only panther on Kipling Isle, and why he knows what snow is while everyone else is mad with worry over the "Chicken Little" apocalypse) is in a rational frame of mind about the first winter in their world's history. But the Bada Dar still have a hibernation instinct for some reason? And Mowgli is back to her "it's the beginning of a new story where the worst is over and nothing kud possibliyee goe ronk, so shut the fuck up, you stupid, lazy cat" mode, which I and my sarcasm always find enjoyable, so hooray for positive growth and responsibility, right?
This special has some good about it, though, as it does acknowledge the events of Fall Of the Wild like Mowgli missing Bomani, Akili's rule over the united Tavi-Bandar Tribe, and Dewan and Louis using fire to con the Bada Dar into another conquest scheme.
Dewan does fall into a pit after trying to burn Mowgli alive for her own safety (probably to be worshipped and/or eaten by the snakes he freed from Kaa's belly, who are led by the cobras from "Rikki-Tikki Tavi," which was a nice reference), but before she can climb in to rescue him because he's arguably human like her, she gets mad at Bagheera and Dewan is forgotten in the aforementioned backloaded exposition of the panther's "big secret." Further disaster is averted because everyone just lets the Bada Dar obey their hibernation instinct, and our main characters (if not our heroes) wait out the cold weather together as the narrator ends the issue promising "dark times ahead for Kipling Isle" that never came because writer M.L. Miller's creative juices turned to crystallized molasses halfway through this nonsensical mess and he never recovered.
Merry Christmas in March, and please Stay Tuned and remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, leave your Song in comments at the bottom of this post and any others you have opinions about, help out my ad revenue as you read (it's the Law Of the Internet), and follow my trail on BlueSky, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content, like tomorrow's TBT '26 triple-feature.
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Omnibuster,
Pagemaster,
Out Of the Jungle.
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